Hitachi introduced an RFID chip in 2001 as part of its “Mu-Chip” initiative. The company's intention was to develop a very small chip that could be powered externally and return a unique 128-bit number.

The first chip produced was 0.4 mm x 0.4 mm. In 2003 Hitachi had improved the technology to 0.3 mm x 0.3 mm and 60 microns thick using traditional processes. By moving to SOI, the company now has one that's 25% that size, and extremely thin.

A typical sheet of paper is between 80 and 100 microns thick, making this new product (at just 7.5 microns thick) an ideal tag for an “electronic watermark.” This chip can be inserted within a single sheet of paper and, when powered by an external 2.54GHz microwave transmitter, can send back its a 128-bit ROM identification number that was encoded when it was created. This number could then be associated with information stored in a database regarding who it belonged to, what classification it had, its origination date, etc.

This newer, smaller product is another step in the long chain of steps that is part of the Mu-Chip project. The current chip is 1/15th the size of the original prototype, and is manufactured using 180 nm processes. Since Hitachi is now using SOI, the ability to shrink the product down even further will become apparent, since the insulation barriers relating to RF interference will no longer be as much of an issue.

I ran the 0.15 x 0.15 dimensions through my Wafer program to find out how many chips Hitachi could get per silicon wafer. On a 200 mm wafer, with a 0.01 mm spacer between each chip, the company could produce 1,176,061 candidates. On a 300 mm wafer it would be 2,684,272 candidates. With a two+ generation process shrink Hitachi might be able to get it down to 0.05 mm x 0.05 mm, and the numbers jump up to 8,374,499 and 19,104,907 respectively.

Manufacturing costs would be quite a bit higher to produce so many chips per wafer, though. To equal the current per-wafer-revenue of about US$157,500 (300 mm wafer, 90% yield, around 450 dies yielded per wafer, and an average sale price of $350), Hitachi would have to sell each RFID chip for 0.92 cents per chip.

Would you pay 0.92 cents per RFID chip to tag your items with this kind of security or inventory tracking? I can think of several industries that will.

first thing(3:51pm EST Tue Feb 07 2006)'I ran the 0.15 x 0.15 dimensions through my Wafer program to find out how many chips Hitachi could get per silicon wafer'

To be honest, you don't need a software to estimate the number of chip fitting on a wafer. In this case, the die is ultra-small and the wafer have a large dimension. The answer is pretty close to the surface of wafer divided from surface of the die. – by Evil doer

Speed or accuracy(4:00pm EST Tue Feb 07 2006)RFID chips offer the ability to count items faster and with less effort BUT also with less accuracy than competing technologies such as bar code.

Environmental factors can easily block or interfere with the low level RF signal (liquids, metals, etc.). A certain percentage of RFID chips will suffer from either factory defects or damage during the application or insertion process. During a fast multi-item scan, there is no easy way to determine a failre rate.

Basically, do you want speed or accuracy? If accuracy is important, it's cheaper to just use bar code. – by JQP

Evil Doer(4:18pm EST Tue Feb 07 2006)

There's a spacer between each chip, and there's an unusable margin around the outside edge of the wafer that has to be factored in.

By my calculations, even including those factors in the size, the total surface area of a 300mm wafer with a 2mm margin is 69,746.5 mm^2, with 19,374,027 units of 0.05mm * 0.05mm with a 0.01mm spacer around all sides fitting in there by hard math. That number is 233,000 less than the real number which would fit.

Knowing the Geek.com policeposters as I do, had I used that number someone would've complained that I was off by 1.4%.

– by RickGeek

Note(4:18pm EST Tue Feb 07 2006)

Should've been [strikethrough]police[/strikethrough]posters.

– by RickGeek

Walmart?(4:33pm EST Tue Feb 07 2006)Walmart has been using rfid for years…they don't do inventory, rfid takes care of that for them.

I wonder how much they pay for them though? From what i've heard its only pennies per unit. What makes this Hitachi any different from what already exits? – by FuzzyGeek

“I've been checkin' it out…(4:53pm EST Tue Feb 07 2006)I checked it out a couple of times.

Oh darling it's important that you believe me…bop, bop, bop

That it CAN happen here!”

— Frank Zappa —

– by Winston Smith

RickGeek(5:03pm EST Tue Feb 07 2006)My point was the calculation would be a few percent. But you are right, someone would have complain anyway. – by Evil doer

Re FuzzyGeek(7:18pm EST Tue Feb 07 2006)“Walmart has been using rfid for years…they don't do inventory, rfid takes care of that for them.”

Wal-Mart has only been doing this for a little over a year. January 2005 was the original deadline they gave to their suppliers.

RFID at Wal-mart is only being used to track shipping “pallets”, not individual items.

– by JQP

Yeah Fuzzy Geek(8:20pm EST Tue Feb 07 2006)Why don't you check your facts before typing crap all over the board? Are you stupid? Huh? Are you really that stupid? Grow up! – by FG Sucks

jesus is coming(10:12pm EST Tue Feb 07 2006)everyday technological breakthroughs, soon this might be implanted under your skin without you even knowing it. think of the possibility the goverment will have over its citizens.

repent and accept jesus :) – by jeus is coming back

???(11:28pm EST Tue Feb 07 2006)

Funny, I always us a capital 'J' in The Lord's name, and “jeus” is an odd way to spell It.

Before that though, what will happen is:

An initial Israeli air attack against some Iranian nuclear targets, command and control targets and Shahab missile sites.

Iran retaliates with its remaining missiles, tries to close the Gulf, attacks US naval assets and American and British forces in Iraq.

If Iranian missiles have chemical warheads (in fact or presumed), the US will immediately use nuclear weapons to destroy the Iranian military and industrial infrastructure.

If not, an air campaign of up to two weeks will prepare the ground campaign for the occupation of the Iranian oil and gas fields.

Mass mobilization in Iraq against US-British forces will be at most a nuisance – easily suppressed by the ruthless employment of massive firepower.

And Israel will use the opportunity to deal with Syria and South Lebanon, and possibly with its Palestinian problem.

The character of this war will be completely different from the Iraq war.

No show-casing of democracy, no “nation-building”, no journalists, no Red Cross – but the kind of war the United States would have fought in North Vietnam if it had not had to reckon with the Soviet Union and China.

– by Capital 'J'

Nintendo Revolution(1:15am EST Wed Feb 08 2006)one of the known color of the revolotion is the color orange. That's a nasty color and nothing worth talking about…but any info is good..right? – by koaudf

1920p(2:42am EST Wed Feb 08 2006)is not a good enough resolution. America should have doubled the resolution since we are just adopting it.

Maybe someone should invent a pree and post compression routine to double the resolution…or anything to work with todays technology.

Wobulation was a good one. – by 3840p

We can do this now(6:37am EST Wed Feb 08 2006)Check out the gun item two on this page.

But just wait another 3-5 years, with new processes, the price will fall to pennies per chip. At that price point you'll begin to seem them in all stores. Even your local Walgreens, CVS, Cost Cutters, etc.

After that, I guess I'll have to give up my five finger discounts, lest I be prisoned for hoarding batteries! – by Who let the Dogs OUT

did I say individual items?(10:31am EST Wed Feb 08 2006)no!, but just wait… – by FuzzyGeek

You didn't say it but you certainly implied it when you said that “rfid takes care of that [inventory] for them.”

Some merchandise is always lost/damaged in transit and at the retail level. They even have a name for it, it's called “shrink”. “Inventory” is an accurate count of the marketable merchandise at a particular location at a given point in time. Shipping records (collected by RFID or otherwise) is next to worthless for determining this.– by JQP

under skin RFID is here now(12:32pm EST Wed Feb 08 2006)my dogs have had it for almost a decade.

In fact if you want to experiment with it yourself, here's a cheap RFID reader kit ($100) that hooks up to your PC's USB port.

In my opinion RFID is a good thing, certainly much harder to loose or copy then a set of keys and for a business like Walmart, home depot, etc, it promises to become a much faster/cheaper way to manage their inventory and sales.

Like it or not RFID will someday replace the UPC bar code as the scan technology of choice. Walmart and the Department of Defense are requiring ALL vendors to RFID at some level just to sell in their facilities. No consumer retailer in their right mind wants to be locked out of those two resellers stores so look for a 100% adoption rate in a very, very short time period. – by EE

Re: EE(1:15pm EST Wed Feb 08 2006)“In my opinion RFID is a good thing, certainly much harder to loose or copy then a set of keys and for a business like Walmart, home depot, etc, it promises to become a much faster/cheaper way to manage their inventory and sales.”

Man, I see you bought into the hype hook line and sinker.

Harder to loose? How so? Maybe if it's embedded under your skin.

Harder to copy? A low cost RFID tag is very simple minded. It has to be to keep it low cost. It should be possible to duplicate a tag's functionality by simply eavesdropping on it's RF conversation with a reader device from a significant distance. The only reason noone is doing it yet … lack of incentive.

Faster way to manage inventory and sales? Possibly but what you gain in speed, you may lose in accuracy.

RFID may be useful but not in as many ways as some currently seem to expect.– by JQP

Who let the Dogs OUT(4:25pm EST Wed Feb 08 2006)

“.92 cents per chip? At that price only the most expensive items would get them, I'm talking electronics, games, items prices $100 and above.”

That is 0.0092 dollars, or less than 1 penny per chip. At that price, almost anything could have one.

Of course, there's still the way in which the items need to be tagged. There will have to be some type of package made around the chip for some type of delivery gun which can put it in whatever is needed. The chip itself would be very fragile, so whatever the package requirements might be could raise the price a little.

– by RickGeek

I would like to see(4:58pm EST Wed Feb 08 2006)this chip used for criminal releases. That way – by Topher

raped(8:19am EST Tue Feb 21 2006)help i raped a little boy and the cops after me, i broke in this guys house to use this pc – by jamaur